For more than 150 years academics have questioned how William Shakespeare of Stratford—a man with limited schooling who apparently never traveled abroad—wrote such a rich body of work, displaying a singularly powerful vocabulary, sense of history, and knowledge of the world. Shakespeare historian Brenda James here mines five years of research to uncover the truth behind this pervasive literary mystery. She and her coauthor, historian William Rubinstein, explain how deciphering the dedication to Shakespeare's sonnets led them to the real author behind these enduring works, and offer substantive arguments that point to Sir Henry Neville, a prominent Elizabethan diplomat and member of Parliament, as a far more likely author of Shakespeare's canon.

"This remarkable, intriguing, and provocative book offers a new answer and a completely plausible new candidate, with all the qualities of a believable author."—John Spiers